This invention relates to communications among end user communication devices and more specifically to the priority of user data processed by end user communication devices, especially but not limited to, wireless end user communication devices, which may be made by different manufacturers and/or have different operating systems.
Wireless communication devices are now prevalent throughout all developed countries of the world. Although cellular telephones are currently the most widespread, other types of wireless communication devices include personal digital assistants, laptop computers with Wi-Fi and/or telecommunication carrier communication support, and various types of “pads” that provide visual displays that are larger than conventional cellular telephones but typically smaller than the displays of a laptop computer. Wireless voice communications between mobile devices utilizing different types of communication protocols, e.g. analog, TDMA, CDMA, VOIP, etc., are supported by different telecommunication carriers which provide appropriate communication protocol interfaces/gateways to facilitate voice communications between mobile units using different communication protocols.
Various types of transport layer communication protocols are supported by wireless communication devices. For example, text messaging, short messaging service (SMS), multimedia messaging service (MMS), email such as by simple mail transfer protocol (SMTP), and instant messaging utilizing hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP) are available. Each type service is supported by a transport layer communication protocol that is part of the telecommunication signaling structure associated with the transport of user communications and the communication of telecommunication infrastructure commands and signals.
Some email client programs support setting an importance level of an email message by the message originator. For example, importance levels can be “high, normal, low”. However, various email clients may not recognize an importance level originated by a different email client or may provide different types of treatment of the message than intended by the originator. In Microsoft Outlook email client the importance level determines the order in which emails are transmitted from the client, i.e. an email with a high importance level will be transmitted ahead of an email with a normal or low importance level even if the latter was stored in a holding queue ahead of the former. Also, an importance level is generally required to be processed by a server disposed in the transmission path between the originator and recipient in order to convey the importance level to the recipient. For example, a Microsoft Exchange Server transmits messages received from a Microsoft Outlook client to the corresponding destinations from a holding queue in an order based on importance level so that higher importance level messages are transmitted ahead of lower importance level messages even if the latter were received prior to the former.